


sometimes quiet is violent

by citadelofswords



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, mostly - Freeform, til the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-05
Updated: 2015-06-05
Packaged: 2018-04-02 22:59:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4077025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/citadelofswords/pseuds/citadelofswords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>But if anyone will be Armando’s soulmate, oh, he wishes it were Alex. Alex, hard and quiet but willing to follow and willing to listen. Alex, who teases and pokes fun but desperately, Armando can see, only wants a friend. Alex, with kicked puppy eyes who track Armando like he is the sun. They work well with each other, he knows, even after only a few days of working together. Armando hopes, wishes, that Alex will say yes, if he were to ask.</p><p>If he were to ask if Alex would let Armando love him.</p><p>But he’ll ask later. After this has blown over. When they’re wiser and out of danger. Then, only then, will Armando ask.</p><p>(or, the soulmate au where you have the last words your soulmate will ever speak to you written on your skin.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	sometimes quiet is violent

**Author's Note:**

> Welp. Instead of writing a sequel to Ecstasies, I wrote something infinitely sadder. I hate this kind of thing. Why do I do it to myself.
> 
> Completely unbeta'd and written in like an hour. 
> 
> I am so sorry.

Armando has “Get down!” written in chicken scratch onto his skin.

It’s oddly comforting, in a twisted way. It’s a rough neighborhood; it makes sense that the last thing his soulmate would ever do would be to protect him. It makes him feel loved, and he traces the words absently in the lulls between drives.

When he was little, his mother tried to tell him that the soulmate marks were the first words your soulmate ever said to you. And then she tried to tell him that they were something random, that not everyone got to find out what the last words their soulmate said were. He knew she had her mark, that they belonged to a man who died in the street during one of her shifts and told her that she was beautiful as the last thing he ever said, and not his father as she had always believed. He couldn’t blame her for being jaded.

He gets to the compound. Raven’s mark is in another language, and she hides it from him when he tries to catch a closer look. Hank’s merely says _I love you_ , which is why Raven won’t show anyone hers, because Hank’s is perfect and Raven’s isn’t, and she doesn’t want to share her sorrow with anyone else. Sean doesn’t have a mark at all.

He doesn’t have long enough to get to know Angel to ask her. But he’s getting ahead of himself.

Alex has “Jesus, man, you are killing me!” scrawled across the back of his neck. Perhaps in his soulmate’s last moments they will be able to share a laugh. Perhaps Alex’s soulmate will make him laugh before they go.

But if anyone will be Armando’s soulmate, oh, he wishes it were Alex. Alex, hard and quiet but willing to follow and willing to listen. Alex, who teases and pokes fun but desperately, Armando can see, only wants a friend. Alex, with kicked puppy eyes who track Armando like he is the sun. They work well with each other, he knows, even after only a few days of working together. Armando hopes, wishes, that Alex will say yes, if he were to ask.

If he were to ask if Alex would let Armando love him.

But he’ll ask later. After this has blown over. When they’re wiser and out of danger. Then, only then, will Armando ask.

Until then, they play pinball. And Alex is, somehow, really, really good.

“Jesus, man, you are killing me!” he says, and freezes, but Alex looks at him and grins.

“Don’t beat yourself up,” he says. “I’ve had a lot of spare time.”

It’s always possible for soulmates to not be a match, Armando tries to reason, but he can’t believe that he is Alex’s soulmate but Alex is not his in return.

No. There is no way. Even if they aren’t soulmates, this is now how their story ends. They will live to survive this night. Armando aches to press closer, and when the first dull boom rings out over their heads, he allows himself to reach, to touch, to share warmth for a moment, to guide Alex away from the game and towards the real world.

And since they _will_ live, Armando leaves it at that. But he will ask Alex after this night is over. After the danger has passed. He will ask, and hope that Alex will say yes. Judging by the way he keeps looking at Alex to try and pass him silent messages, only to find Alex already watching him, waiting, no fear in his eyes, he’ll be successful.

But the longer it goes on, when Angel turns and steps away, when Armando realizes that to follow Shaw is the only way to bring him down, he resigns himself. he turns back to Alex, and Alex has a question in his eyes.

Armando touches. Alex punches. Armando turns away.

“Wait,” he says. “I’m coming with you.”

Before Alex fires, he screams, “Get down!”

Armando’s stomach drops, but he forces himself to turn away. To lean down.

He didn’t say Alex’s words.

That’s how he breaks apart. Thinking to himself, _I was Alex’s soulmate, and he wasn’t mine._

 

* * *

 

When he reforms, he doesn’t know what year it is.

He lets his hair grow out, lets his facial hair come in, treks round the globe. Raven shot the president and they’re rounding up mutants, but for some reason no detector can catch him. His soulmate mark seals the deal— someone started a rumor that no mutant has a soulmate mark and it stuck. They mark him as human on his identifications and let him go. 

He reforms in 1974. In 1979, he stumbles across a cabin targeted by a Sentinel and sees two young, round faces inside.

_Oh, hell_ , he thinks, and stumbles inside.

If there’s one thing that he can confirm reformed, it’s his protective streak.

In 1983, he’s behind a tree when he sees a Sentinel targeting a man in dirty prison scrubs with a shock of blond hair. When the Sentinel starts to glow red, the man stops running, stands straight, makes eye contact with Armando, freezes solid.

He opens his mouth to speak. Nothing comes out. 

Armando misses jumping in front of him by _that much._  

“Alex,” he whispers, catching Alex as he crumbles. The Sentinel turns away; it has no business with the human. “Alex, Alex, come on.”

Alex struggles to open his eyes, but half of his face is burning and he whimpers. His heartbeat is so fast it’s like a mouse’s. Armando grips his hand, crushes it in his own. Alex opens his mouth to speak, and focuses. 

“Get down!” he manages, and drags Armando down by the throat to fire at someone coming— Armando doesn’t see who it is, in that he’s trying to get his breath back.

“Jesus, man,” he manages, “you are killing me!”

Alex’s hand drops from his throat. Armando straightens to try and persuade Alex to stay alive a little longer, but he falters when he catches a glimpse of Alex’s eyes, which are not focused on Armando for the first time Armando can remember, and the affectionate words die on his tongue.

**Author's Note:**

> I told Murf. I told her, "Hey, when you write the soulmate au, you should totally make it so that Armando has Alex's last words to him but doesn't realize it because he comes back but doesn't see Alex again until Alex is killed." She didn't do it. So I had to.
> 
> [Come say hi. Or cry about this. Either one.](http://citadelofswords.tumblr.com/ask)


End file.
